So I've been thinking about feedback cycles in roguelikes lately. I'm talking about the player performing an action, the game providing feedback, and the player incorporating the feedback into his/her play. See this or this or this.

Hoplite is an example of a game with short feedback loops. It's immediately obvious whether the last move was good or bad. For me that made it easy to improve my play quickly.

On the other side, I've been playing NetHack for at least 10 years, have never ascended, and my highscore is below 30,000. I'm awful at it. The game provides almost no straightforward clues as to what is a good move or a bad move other than "You died!" at the end. Sure, I know log messages provide information, but the messages are vague at best and without spoilers, almost impossible to decipher.

There is, of course, a lot of middle ground in the middle. I'm curious, are you actively designing with player feedback in mind? Do you tend to be vague or straightforward with how feedback is given to the player? What do you hide and what do you expose?